Women vs. Mosquitoes
From the community to the lab, women lead the fight against the world’s deadliest animal
Mosquitoes are more than just an outdoor nuisance for many women and their families around the globe. The insects are capable of spreading a host of potentially deadly diseases including malaria.
Pregnant women and young children are particularly vulnerable, with 272,000 children under 5 and 10,000 pregnant women dying of malaria each year worldwide. As both patients and caregivers, women bear the health, societal, and economic burden of this disease that exacerbates poverty and deepens inequalities.
But women are also fighting back against malaria. They make up 70% of the global health workforce that has been instrumental in driving down malaria cases and deaths in remote and rural communities over the last two decades.
“Ending malaria is an unrealized opportunity for advancing gender equality in health,” wrote former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in a recent case for investing in a gendered approach to the fight against malaria. “Investing in a female health workforce creates pathways for them to become decision-makers, not just implementers of malaria programs and policies; they also serve as role models for other women and girls in their communities.”
In the past three years alone, USAID and the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) have hired nearly 50,000 local women to work on mosquito control through the PMI VectorLink Project — providing both vital malaria protection and employment even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here are a few of those women and the essential roles they play in the fight against malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
Mimi Jilo — Community Mosquito Collector in Ethiopia
Mimi is one of eight women in Ethiopia’s Gelana district who collects and studies mosquitoes. For the past two years, she and her cohort have become an essential part of PMI VectorLink’s on-going study to better understand mosquito behavior and malaria risk in their community. Locally recruited, these community volunteer mosquito collectors are helping generate key data from multiple sites simultaneously, which cannot be done with the limited number of trained entomologists.
Mimi makes monthly visits to neighboring homes setting up light traps to lure mosquitoes into a collection chamber. She then separates the mosquitoes from other insects and identifies the genus (Anopheles) that can transmit malaria for further entomological testing.
As a local community member, Mimi is trusted by her neighbors to enter homes and set up the traps to capture mosquitoes overnight. She also brings awareness to the role mosquitoes play in malaria transmission.
The mosquitoes Mimi collects are studied to determine the quantity of mosquitoes related to malaria parasite transmission, when and where they are biting and resting, and susceptibility to insecticides. This community-level information helps reduce the number of malaria carrying mosquitoes in an environment by improving programs at the granular level.
Anna Mary Auma: Entomology Field Assistant in Uganda
In her decades-long career, Anna Mary has helped fight diseases such as river blindness, trachoma, intestinal worms, bilharzia, and lymphatic filariasis by targeting disease-transmitting vectors like mosquitoes, snails, and black flies. Now she works to end malaria faster by reducing the population of mosquitoes that transmit it.
One way to control these mosquitoes is through indoor residual spray (IRS) campaigns where a trained technician applies a long lasting insecticide to the interior walls of homes. While this chemical is safe for humans, it is deadly for mosquitoes who absorb lethal doses when they rest on the walls.
To track the effectiveness and quality of IRS, Anna Mary conducts monthly tests called wall bioassays to monitor the rate of deterioration of the insecticide in homes. The longer the insecticide lasts, the longer household members are protected. The data Anna Mary collects help her country’s malaria program determine when the next spray campaign needs to be done.
“The job means a lot to me,” she says. In addition to helping fight one of her country’s greatest public health threats, her income has allowed her to help with school fees for her siblings, college for her children, and financial support for her mother.
Regina Ama Nicol: Entomology Field/Insectary Technician in Sierra Leone
“Working in entomology gives me a sense of satisfaction” says Regina of the work at the intersection of insects, humans, the environment, development work and scientific research.
“The most interesting part of being a PMI VectorLink technician is not killing mosquitoes,” she says, but rearing them.
Mosquitoes collected as larvae from the field and hatched and raised in the insectary are needed to test whether the insecticides are still working.
These tests are critical to improving and adapting mosquito control strategies over time. Programs need to rotate the types of insecticides used in homes each year to try to keep the mosquitoes from developing resistance. To stay ahead of this critical problem, new types and combinations of insecticides must be developed to target different key functions of the mosquito.
Chitan Keita: Assistant Entomologist in Mali
Since childhood, several times a year Chitan has suffered severe malaria accompanied by hallucinations and severe anemia. This spurred her passion to work in entomology. “I am curious to know the cause of this disease which tires me so much,” she explains.
With PMI VectorLink, Chitan studies and monitors the biting and resting behavior of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, which can help malaria programs be more effective. If the number of malaria-carrying mosquitoes decreases after net distribution or home spray campaign, then programs know they are on the right track.
Throughout Chitan’s career, there have been colleagues, relatives, and friends, who have discouraged her from a career in entomology and told her that the job isn’t suitable for a woman.
“There have been entomology technicians who had a hard time accepting me as their leader in the field,” she said. “I have cried often when faced with certain situations but haven’t gotten discouraged or given up. I had to show everyone that a woman is also capable of excelling in all areas dominated by men.”
These challenges have pushed her to master and supervise all the different field entomological activities. Now her work makes her feel fulfilled and free as she encourages younger women to pursue this exciting field.
Louisa Antwi-Agyei: Lab Technician in Ghana
Lousia has been fascinated with insects since she was a young girl. “I was curious about their life cycle, their role in the ecosystem, and the effects they have on humans,” she said. “I chose to learn more about mosquitoes because of the role they play in transmitting malaria.”
As a lab technician with PMI VectorLink, Lousia identifies the various types of mosquitoes collected from the field. Tracking data on mosquito age, gender, as female mosquitos are the only ones that transmit malaria, and species can help malaria programs tell whether their interventions are working to reduce the risk of someone being bitten by an infected female Anopheles.
“I am privileged to help contribute to eradicating malaria in Ghana,” Louisa said. And despite the stereotype that the field of entomology is for men, Louisa has had a positive experience. “Fortunately, I have not faced any barriers so far in pursuing my career as a woman. My supervisors teach, encourage, and guide me to be a better person.”
Dr. Seynabou Diedhiou: Research Associate with the Laboratory of Vector and Parasite Ecology at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar in Senegal
Since 2018, Dr. Diedhiou has led molecular entomological studies for PMI VectorLink Senegal. Wild mosquitoes collected by technicians in the field are brought into the laboratory so Dr. Diedhiou and her team can collect a host of information that is helpful for malaria control programs.
“Fighting against human diseases and producing knowledge that contributes to informed decision making for health policies to address public health problems is what I always wanted,” says Dr. Diedhiou.
Dr. Diedhiou is responsible for a variety of lab tests on wild mosquitoes to gather biochemical and genetic information about their resistance to particular insecticides. Identifying trends and patterns of genetic mutations can help inform which mosquito control tools to ensure the most effective means of controlling malaria.
Dr. Diedhiou likes to share her knowledge by training people and helping them to move forward.
“Through work, I seek to be part of those female leaders who are serving the population to change things and who are showing other women that anything is possible,” she said.
About the Author
The U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) is led by USAID and co-implemented by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. Each year 700 million people across 27 partner country programs benefit from PMI’s collaboration and work.
